Friday, September 19, 2008

Chicken Stock

J doesn't travel too much for work, but last night was one of those nights. With the house all to myself I had grand plans of finishing my closet organization project, folding the rest of the laundry and finally getting to those wedding Thank You notes (those of you who have not yet received one, you know I love you, I'm just lazy).

I accomplished none of those tasks and instead spent hours watching Scrubs reruns, the Office and ER finales from last season and Good Will Hunting, all the while doing a book of very difficult Kakuro puzzles http://www.kakuro.net/

The one thing which salvaged my waste of an evening was making chicken stock.

Earlier in the week we bought a rotisserie chicken from Dominicks. I LOVE rotisserie chickens. I didn't even know how much I loved them until the last year or so. We get them infrequently, but every time we do, I can't wait to finish carving the meat (or, let's be honest, for J to finish carving the meat) so that I can take the carcass and make a big pot of stock.

Now, the problem I have encountered in the past is that I save that carcass. I keep it in the fridge and have grand plans. And then the week gets busy, and then I get distracted from my goal, and then I completely forget about the carcass until J points out the smell in the fridge.

This time I kept my eyes on the prize

Here's my stock
Chicken carcass
2-3 carrots
2-3 stalks celery
3/4 onion
parsley
1-2 bay leaves
lemon juice
salt
pepper

Put it in the pot, fill it with water, bring to a boil and simmer for a few hours. I realized just now that I forgot bay leaves. Oh well.

After I'm done I strain everything, return the liquid to the pot and put the pot in the fridge overnight so I can skim off any fat the next day. Freeze in small batches and use for the next month or two.

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